Typographic Countdown — 4 Days ’til the New Year

With four days left to go, we’re jumping ahead to the number 3. Three, along with the rest of the Arabic numerals, comes from a completely different tradition than our alphabet. The ten digits in question are about as Arabic as the Latin alphabet is English. They developed over hundreds of years under the hands of mathematicians in India, spread to Persia, and ultimately the whole of the western world during the middle ages.

Threes with a flat top, like in Miles Newlyn’sRubrik are harder to turn into eights that those with a curved top.